What Makes a Report
by catfoxy
Summary: All those mission reports written by agents have to be read by someone at some point, right? Well, now you can meet someone who is responsible for checking and filing the reports of a certain team. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.*g* -OC/POV


_Author's Note:_

_First of all, I'd like to thank all of you who read my stories and give me reviews. It never ceases to amaze me that people actually read my stories. LOL So I just want you to know that I really love all your feedback. Thank You for that. _

_I have written a few 'outside perspective' stories lately, and I gotta admit these are really fun to write, so I wanted to see if I can come up with one more of these. And one particular idea hit me over the head with a shovel when I happened to re-read an older story of mine called "The Mission". Remember Ethan almost breaking his neck to hand in that mission report in time?_

_So, my take on this is the following:_

_Before these reports can be filed away after each mission, there's gotta be people at the IMF who, at some point, will have to read and sign off on all those mission reports, right? Not necessarily always the Secretary himself, but maybe some section clerks or department overseers, whose job it is to give the reports a final check and then seal them off as 'top secret'. _

_Hence, this is the POV of one of those section clerks._

_Let's call him Harold._

_:o)_

_Summary: _

_All those mission reports written by agents have to be read by someone at some point, right? Well, now you can meet someone who is responsible for checking and filing the reports of a certain team. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. LOL_

**-o-**

**What Makes a Report**

It was one of those days.

Harold had just gotten himself some fresh coffee and a donut – although his wife always kept telling him that donuts were not good for him – but Harold _loved_ his morning donut. And on some days he even _needed_ it, to get through the day.

Particularly if the day was a report day.

Like today.

As he walked into his office on the 9th floor of the IMF headquarters, he could already see the stack of new files on his desk. There was only one explanation for a stack as large as this one. The department had sent him the latest mission reports from the past week.

It was his job to give them the final check-over before they would be filed into the system.

Some might call him an overpaid spell-checker.

But anyone who ever read a report by an agent knew that there was much more to it than this. And spell-checking was the least of his problems.

You wouldn't believe the reports of some of the missions he got to read.

Half of them sounded so impossible, in his first month of duty he had actually thought he was being tested to see how ridiculous a report could be before he refused to sign off on it. But, after a while, and after a personal reassurance from the Secretary himself, Harold had gotten used to the idea that these reports actually referred to real missions.

Now, his only doubts about these reports were directed towards the style in which some of them were written.

Sure, different people might have different ways of writing. At the end of the day, an accountant might have a different report style than say a PT coach. While one report might be more distinct and functional, the other one might read a little more detailed and embellished.

But _agents_ apparently were a breed of their own.

And _some_ agents were downright 'unique' in their way of writing their reports.

As Harold sat down at his desk, he finished the bagel and then put the rest of his coffee aside to start working on the files.

He made good progress.

After about an hour, he was almost done.

Only a few more reports left.

Since they were all the same color that meant they were all dealing with the same mission.

He glanced at the cover of the first file, reading what team had been tasked with the mission.

Harold rarely cringed.

But at that moment he did.

'_Them_ again…'

Harold couldn't help the sigh that escaped him. He wondered for a moment if he could slip those four files to his colleague next-door unnoticed, so that his colleague would have to sign off on these.

But, seeing that someone would probably notice it at some point, Harold knew he was stuck with the files.

There was no way around it.

He would have to do it.

'Oi.'

Alright. Time to face the enemy.

Harold opened the first file.

Yep, that was one of them alright.

He immediately recognized the writing style. All that technical mambo-jumbo was a dead give-away. You had to be a walking computer to understand half of it. Harold simply did what he always did when he got one of those. He put his initials under the last line of the report and quickly closed it again, trusting the accuracy of the computer jargon in the report, even unseen. Harold was sure that the guy was competent. Hardol didn't have to 'understand' any of it, to see that. So. Next one, please.

The next report was much better. He actually liked the writing style of that agent. It was always a very streamlined mixture of information, clarity and attention to detail, with just a touch of insight into the dangers the mission had held. It made Harold conclude once again that women obviously were the better writers. In the case of these four agents, it certainly was true.

Without the report from that one agent, he would probably never fully know what the other three reports were trying to tell him. But, now that he was aware of the general outline of the mission and the ups and downs that had been encountered during it, Harold signed off on the second report with an almost grateful flourish. Okay. Next one.

That one was, as expected, rather long. The analytic aspect of the report was spotless. Exhaustingly so. Harold had seen a lot of numbers in his time at the IMF. But every time he saw a report from this agent, the amount of digits perceived by Harold in his long career of reading reports kept going up radically.

Harold was pretty sure all these numbers weren't really necessary in a report. What was the importance of knowing how high a building in a desert was, right down to the last inch? Or why bother estimating how fast the wind was blowing at the time? And analysing the speed of fall in relation to the angle of a jump – really, come on, what was the point?

Sometimes, Harold really wondered why a former analyst turned field agent couldn't just switch his writing style from analyst to agent, as well. It would make things much easier for Harold.

But, Harold knew the worst was still to come.

He had one file left.

Harold never knew if he should laugh or cry when he saw a report from that agent.

But, Harold had long learned to just accept the report the way it was. He doubted the agent would ever change his style.

As he opened the last file, Harold saw that his assumption was once again spot-on.

The report, if you could call it that, was as always short and succinct. No unnecessary details. No embellishments. Just the facts.

In fact, the report was so anticlimactic, that Harold sometimes wondered if the guy had actually been there at the mission or if he was just making a joke of putting in a report because it was expected of every agent after each mission.

Harold simply shook his head in acceptance.

Taking the single page of the report out of the folder to sign it, Harold put his initials at the very bottom of the page.

Not that he couldn't have put it almost anywhere else on the paper, as well.

There was certainly enough space left on the page.

Harold simply sighed.

He really didn't expect much from a report. And he knew that this particular field agent had been in this line of work for so long that, theoretically, the man _should_ know by now the basics of what a report should minimally include.

But Harold had long stopped trying to argue the point with his superiors. They seemed okay with. And if his superiors were fine with the report, Harold was fine with it as well.

After all, who was he to argue?

And, admittedly, a report consisting of nothing but a short and to the point "Mission accomplished!" did kind of sum up a mission rather well, didn't it?

THE END


End file.
